Extract from The Guardian
“It’s distressing,” said Ayesha Tulloch, a research fellow at the University of Sydney and vice-president of the Ecological Society of Australia.
“It’s an act which has the word environment in it and yet the conversations we have about it don’t even mention it. Even that term, ‘green tape’, is perceived as a negative thing rather than something that could promote economic stimulation.”
Graeme Samuel, a former competition watchdog chairman, is leading the once-in-a-decade review of the EPBC Act. He is due to hand down an interim report later this month.
Scientists and environmentalists argue the act is failing to prevent an extinction crisis. Just 22 of 6,500 projects referred for approval have been knocked back in the act’s 20-year history.
Australia has the world’s highest rate of mammalian extinction. Reporting by Guardian Australia has found the government has failed to implement or track measures for species known to be at risk, stopped listing major threats to species, and not registered a single piece of critical habitat for 15 years.
The listing of species and ecosystems as threatened has been delayed by successive ministers, funding has been directed to projects that did not benefit threatened species and hundreds of plants and animals have been identified as requiring urgent attention after the summer bushfire disaster.
The government has framed its commentary about the review around a desire to speed up approval times for projects as the country moves out of the economic shutdown caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
It says it plans to reduce the time frame for approvals by a further 25% – to 30 days for major projects – by using bilateral processes between state and federal governments and by investing in specialist project teams and developing central databases.
“One area in which the commonwealth has a direct regulatory role for relevant projects is through approvals under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999,” Morrison said on Monday.
“According to departmental estimates, delays associated with these approvals alone cost industry over $300m just in 2019. That’s not good enough.”
Megan Evans, an environmental policy researcher at the University of New South Wales in Canberra, said one of the reasons approvals could be slow was because the capacity of the public service had been cut.
Evans said a world-leading environmental system required investment from governments and there were many ways in which policies for business, the environment and intergenerational equity could work hand-in-hand.
She said it was reasonable for businesses and industry to want certainty, but governments could provide that by making Australia’s environmental laws less ambiguous.
“You could provide that by providing clear and unambiguous advice by, for example, saying this particular species, or area, or piece of cultural heritage is a no-go zone,” she said.
“Instead, we have highly ambiguous wording [in the act] which provides maximum discretion to the minister that reduces certainty and puts all power in the hands of the minister of the day. You can’t on one hand complain about the lack of certainty but then on the other shy away from measures that would actually provide greater certainty.”
The climate scientist, Bill Hare, said Australia’s approach to its natural environment was damaging not only for the country’s ecosystems, but its democracy.
“It’s distressing and depressing because of the ongoing decline of the Australian environment, the ongoing loss of biodiversity and because there’s absolutely no recognition of the need to tackle climate change in any of this,” he said.
“And it’s totally bipartisan. You cannot even get one local member to call you back on it. How would you describe it? A democratic deficit.”
Euan Ritchie, an associate professor in wildlife ecology and conservation at Deakin University, said Australia had a globally abysmal and embarrassing record for nature conservation.
“It has for a long time, too long, and it continues to worsen, and that has been compounded by the recent devastating fires,” he said.
He said it was disappointing that commentary about the review had not focused on the value of Australia’s almost 2,000 threatened species and sub-species.
“If we are indeed going to speed up approvals for development, let’s also speed up the conservation assessment of native species and ecosystems, including threatened species,” Ritchie said.
“Let’s speed up writing and implementing threatened species action plans, with adequate resources, to ensure we don’t continue adding to our appalling record for species extinctions.”
Scott Morrison’s announcement in wake of bushfires is ‘distressing’ and puts threatened species at risk, ecologists say
Scientists have expressed dismay and frustration at Scott Morrison’s
latest push to deregulate the environmental approval process for major
developments, noting it comes just months after an unprecedented
bushfire crisis and during a review of national conservation laws.
In a speech on Monday, the prime minister said he wanted to slash approval times for major projects by moving to a streamlined “single touch” system for state and federal environmental assessments.
Morrison said the change would be informed by the review of
Australia’s environment laws, the Environment Protection and
Biodiversity Conservation
(EPBC) Act, which is under way. But his speech did not mention the
environment or the act’s objectives to protect threatened species and
ecosystems.In a speech on Monday, the prime minister said he wanted to slash approval times for major projects by moving to a streamlined “single touch” system for state and federal environmental assessments.
“It’s distressing,” said Ayesha Tulloch, a research fellow at the University of Sydney and vice-president of the Ecological Society of Australia.
“It’s an act which has the word environment in it and yet the conversations we have about it don’t even mention it. Even that term, ‘green tape’, is perceived as a negative thing rather than something that could promote economic stimulation.”
Graeme Samuel, a former competition watchdog chairman, is leading the once-in-a-decade review of the EPBC Act. He is due to hand down an interim report later this month.
Scientists and environmentalists argue the act is failing to prevent an extinction crisis. Just 22 of 6,500 projects referred for approval have been knocked back in the act’s 20-year history.
Australia has the world’s highest rate of mammalian extinction. Reporting by Guardian Australia has found the government has failed to implement or track measures for species known to be at risk, stopped listing major threats to species, and not registered a single piece of critical habitat for 15 years.
The listing of species and ecosystems as threatened has been delayed by successive ministers, funding has been directed to projects that did not benefit threatened species and hundreds of plants and animals have been identified as requiring urgent attention after the summer bushfire disaster.
The government has framed its commentary about the review around a desire to speed up approval times for projects as the country moves out of the economic shutdown caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
It says it plans to reduce the time frame for approvals by a further 25% – to 30 days for major projects – by using bilateral processes between state and federal governments and by investing in specialist project teams and developing central databases.
“One area in which the commonwealth has a direct regulatory role for relevant projects is through approvals under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999,” Morrison said on Monday.
“According to departmental estimates, delays associated with these approvals alone cost industry over $300m just in 2019. That’s not good enough.”
Megan Evans, an environmental policy researcher at the University of New South Wales in Canberra, said one of the reasons approvals could be slow was because the capacity of the public service had been cut.
Evans said a world-leading environmental system required investment from governments and there were many ways in which policies for business, the environment and intergenerational equity could work hand-in-hand.
She said it was reasonable for businesses and industry to want certainty, but governments could provide that by making Australia’s environmental laws less ambiguous.
“You could provide that by providing clear and unambiguous advice by, for example, saying this particular species, or area, or piece of cultural heritage is a no-go zone,” she said.
“Instead, we have highly ambiguous wording [in the act] which provides maximum discretion to the minister that reduces certainty and puts all power in the hands of the minister of the day. You can’t on one hand complain about the lack of certainty but then on the other shy away from measures that would actually provide greater certainty.”
The climate scientist, Bill Hare, said Australia’s approach to its natural environment was damaging not only for the country’s ecosystems, but its democracy.
“It’s distressing and depressing because of the ongoing decline of the Australian environment, the ongoing loss of biodiversity and because there’s absolutely no recognition of the need to tackle climate change in any of this,” he said.
“And it’s totally bipartisan. You cannot even get one local member to call you back on it. How would you describe it? A democratic deficit.”
Euan Ritchie, an associate professor in wildlife ecology and conservation at Deakin University, said Australia had a globally abysmal and embarrassing record for nature conservation.
“It has for a long time, too long, and it continues to worsen, and that has been compounded by the recent devastating fires,” he said.
He said it was disappointing that commentary about the review had not focused on the value of Australia’s almost 2,000 threatened species and sub-species.
“If we are indeed going to speed up approvals for development, let’s also speed up the conservation assessment of native species and ecosystems, including threatened species,” Ritchie said.
“Let’s speed up writing and implementing threatened species action plans, with adequate resources, to ensure we don’t continue adding to our appalling record for species extinctions.”
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